U.S. Navy ‘Pulverized’ This Massachusetts Island For Target Practice

Nomans Land is the Rodney Dangerfield of islands in that it got "no respect" from the United States military.

The uninhabited island, about 612 acres in size, is a part of Chilmark, Massachusetts, some three miles southwest of Martha's Vineyard.

Nomans Land – Cappoaquit to the Wampanoag, according to Dr. Charles Edward Banks' The History of Martha's Vineyard, published in 1911 – was "discovered" in 1602 by British explorer Capt. Bartholomew Gosnold.

Gosnold may have discovered everything there was to discover around these parts, including New Bedford.

Get our free mobile app

Nomans Land is famous more for what happened to it rather than for what happened on it, although the New York Times reported in 1914 that the island was purchased by Joshua Crane for use as a private game reserve.

The Boston Daily Globe reported that Nomans Land was a popular place for rum runners during Prohibition, which lasted from 1920 to 1933.

Crane first leased Nomans Land Island to the U.S. Navy during World War II. The Navy constructed an airfield on the island and renamed it Nomans Land Range. The Navy bought the island outright in 1953.

The MV Times reported, "For nearly a half-century, the Navy, and reportedly also the Air Force, pulverized the tiny island for target practice." The bombardment is believed to have stopped around 1996.

"The danger posed by UXO (unexploded ordinance) appears to be the core reason the island is a no-go area," the paper reported. "In a 1998 cleanup of the island, the Navy removed 551,780 pounds of ordnance debris from rockets, bombs, shells, and bullets."

In 2020, the Navy agreed to spend $11 million as part of a Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act clean-up process.

The federal government owns Nomans Land, which has no human inhabitants.